Dunne Speaks: The uneasy inevitability of what happens next

One could be forgiven for thinking there is nothing
new in politics, that it is all about the redevelopment of
old ideas, or the modernisation of old situations, and that
the challenge is more one of how these situations are
addressed for a new generation of voters.

Writing over
half a century ago, the American political scientist, E.E.
Schattschneider observed that organisation was "the
mobilisation of bias" and that the key to political success
lay with those able to organise their causes most
effectively. Nearly sixty years later, nothing much has
changed, and we are seeing that game being played out here
at present by groups like nurses and teachers, who had felt
hard done by during the years of the National-led
Government, setting high expectations of the Labour-led
Government for their forthcoming contract negotiations, with
threats of industrial action if their demands are not met.
How the Government, which says it cannot afford everything
being sought, deals with this without setting off a winter
of discontent will be an interesting spectacle to watch over
the next few months, especially since it will be
discontented nurses and teachers turning up each month to
push their case at Labour Electorate Committee meetings, and
lobbying backbench lobby-fodder Labour MPs assiduously on
Saturday mornings.

The 1984 Lange Government made its mark
with a series of well stage-managed Summits at Parliament -
most notably the Economic Summit which was televised live
from the Parliamentary Chamber - all to create the
impression of a new, listening and consultative government,
committed to consensus based decision-making as a stark
contrast to the dictatorial Muldoon years that preceded it.
Also, and arguably more importantly, the Summits' purpose
was to provide cover for many of the Government's subsequent
decisions, because the people had been consulted, even if
their views were subsequently largely ignored.

The present
Government does not have quite the same panache, but has
already established a breathtaking number of reviews and
consultations - 39 in all in just under 5 months in office -
to show that it too is a warm and caring Government that
listens, then acts. Yet, the outcome of most of the reviews
is pretty predictable, even before the reviews have started,
so they are simply the modern version of giving the
Government the leeway to act in the way that it always
intended.

The post 1996 National-led Coalition Government
was brought to its knees by a tacky combination of silk
boxer shorts, Dirty Dog sunglasses, and some Ministers
treating the taxpayers' funding as almost a personal gift.
Today, we have the row over one Minister treating Defence
Force aircraft as a personal taxi fleet, while another is
threatening to fire the entire board of Air New Zealand.
Corrosive coalition politics led to the fall of the Prime
Minister in 1997, and the defeat altogether of the
Government at the next election. The current Prime Minister
has already had to rebuke the Minister who attacked Air New
Zealand. Now, while the next chapter of the current story
has yet to be written, there is already a sense of uneasy
inevitability about what will happen next.

It is that fear
of the future that has led the Greens to take their unusual
stand on Parliamentary Questions. While no-one cares about
the niceties, it is a way of showing they are different -
and separate - from their two partners, and are not afraid
to break out of the coalition straightjacket if they
perceive the need. Of course, whether it will work is an
entirely different question, but it does highlight the
Greens' determination not to become weak collateral damage,
if the Government unravels.

Given that all of these
situations are reprises to some extent or other of what has
happened before, I am reminded of the advice of a
long-serving former Labour MP at the time that I was first
elected: "Make sure you get yourself a good speech, and
stick to it. Then all you have to do is change the audience
from time to time."

In response to the challenges facing Scoop and the media industry we’ve instituted an Ethical Paywall to keep the news freely available to the public.
People who use Scoop for work need to be licensed through a ScoopPro subscription under this model, they also get access to exclusive news tools.

Military style semi-automatics and assault rifles will be banned in New Zealand under stronger new gun laws announced today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says... Related parts used to convert these guns into MSSAs are also being banned, along with all high-capacity magazines.

“An amnesty will be put in place for weapons to be handed in, and Cabinet has directed officials to develop a buyback scheme...All semi-automatic weapons used during the terrorist attack on Friday 15 March will be banned." More>>

The latest statistics cover 110 agencies that collectively completed 18,106 official information requests between July and December 2018, a 16.4% increase on the 15,551 requests for the previous six months. More>>

ALSO:

A total of 64,400 hectares of conservation land in the Mokihinui River catchment on the West Coast north of Westport, including 15 km of riverbed, is being added to Kahurangi National Park. “Adding this area, roughly half the size of Auckland City, to Kahurangi is the largest addition of land to an existing national park in New Zealand’s history,” Eugenie Sage said. More>>